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Douglas_Knight comments on Is semiotics bullshit? - Less Wrong Discussion
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I think this is the field's key once-nontrivial insight: that symbolism is powerful and pervasive, and you can learn a lot by paying attention to how it works. This is approaching triviality today, but it sounds like in 1930 an automaker would think you were crazy if you said, "Instead of describing the objective qualities of your car, your ads should insinuate things about the kind of person who drives it".
I'm not convinced the impenetrable language was ever necessary or helpful to this, though.
I'd guess that they're introductions to how to actually do semiotic theory. So when you examine how to tell that 'C' signifies cold, it's like going to the first day of linear algebra and proving that x * 0 = 0; the point is that you're learning a framework. The question is whether the framework later enables you to go on to learn things you couldn't have without it.